Is the Wii U Too Pricey?

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has caused quite a stir on the internet this week by stating how he is displeased at Wii U’s price in an interview on Games Industry International.

“I always prefer lower pricing, so I can’t say I’m happy.”

There’s no denying that $300 is a lot of money to many people, but is it too much for a console launch? Explosion.com examines and compares previous console launch prices, looks at what the Wii U offers in return for your money, and whether Nintendo themselves are making a profit. Read inside for the final verdict!

Launch line up consists of a lot of ports, which tells me they pushed it out one year to beat the competition. With the lack of titles I'm shooting for and the line up of games still to come, I am going to wait until next year.

yea, its hardly the first console in history to have mostly ports on release, if anyone deserves these ports its a nintendo system because the previous systems were not powerfull enough so they are first time games on this system,

Point being, there is only 2 games Bayonetta 2 and ZombieU that are 100% built for the system. The rest are Wii HD upgrades and ports of other games. Without the launch of 1st party titles built for the system, it just shows me Nintendo is doing a smart thing to get the system out early to the consumers. I will own a Wii U but I am not getting one in 3 days. I have a ton to get until the heavy hitters come out. I will have the next Zelda and Metroid and 2D Mario on this beastly little machine.

which makes no difference when you buy the original ps3 or xbox 360. coz you had to pay extra for the HDD.

basically Nintendo left that option to the users, since they didn't want to have to add-on to the price any proprietary disk just to have a huge amount of HDD space. with external HDD's getting cheaper, in the long run, you'll thank Nintendo for not including it.

anyways, it will only affect users who like to download digital retail versions of the games, or from eShop. and not everyone is into that yet, some still prefer physical discs, while some from the other parts of the world simply don't have fast enough internet speeds to warrant downloading 5-25GB games.

is the price fair? i'd say yes. is it too pricey? well from where I am, it could be. but depends on how much profit they intend to gain.

If it had one model, the pro or whatever and it was 250, I would have bought it. But since Nintendo decided to wait and get public feedback, and everyone was drooling at the mouth saying they would pay 350-400+ you ruined it for everyone else.

WiiU devs were immediately scanning the internet after their announcements before/during e3.

I don't believe for a second that Nintendo was doing any of that, because both of their E3's weren't even close to go at explaining what the hell the Wii U is/was. Preorders went active right after their press conference, so I don't see how in the hell they could get that much feedback in a matter of minutes. I personally think that for 350 you're getting one hell of a great console with an awesome new way to play games. If they included what you wanted it would have been closer to 400 before taxs.

"If it had one model, the pro or whatever and it was 250, I would have bought it."

I may be the only one to agree with you on this, I'm not really into the tablet controller fad, I just want a simple controller like the PS3 and X360 controllers, even the Wii u pro controller really dosen't do it for me, I don't like the lay out and from what I hear (I could be wrong on this but) the pro controller dosen't have a R3/ joy stick button on the joy sticks, which would drive me crazy if true, like it did on golden eye wii with the wii pro controller. I'm holding off on the Wii U for now.

Yeah they admitted that they were paying attention to the buzz it had, and after they screwed up their own introduction of the system it was kind of 50/50, so yeah I can't blame them for pricing the thing at a loss. I'm saying it now, both PS and Mircosoft well sell their next console at 450 and take almost no loss. I can't wait to see the fanboys of those two companies defend it for having 4k rez and this and that. Ps I'm not a fanboy of Nintendo, I just happen to want the Wii U really bad :)!

It's a brand new console with brand new tech of course the price is worth it. Just checked on US Amazon as I'm guessing most people on here are from the US. Compared with the 7 year old 360 and 6 year old PS3 you're only paying between $50 - $100 more for the Wii U. Is it not worth an extra $100 for a brand new console?

If you can't afford $300 then chances are that you Shouldn't be buying the system in the first place. 300 is not cheap in the least but then again people cry about the vita being to expensive whilst having the power of a home console...

I was looking forward to it when they said you can play your game on the tablet instead of the console thinking i could continue my game in my bedroom or while sitting on the toilet but it turns out the tablet has to be in the same room as the console...so no deal for me...maybe later when it's down to $150

Um that test is inconclusive seeing as how he had the tablet turned off the whole time. (why couldn't he turn it on??)So i guess we're just supposed to take his word for it?...anyhow, another article i read mentioned that you had to be in the line of site for it to work properly...furthermore i was hoping to play a game with the console actually off, perhaps by downloading several levels onto the tablet, but i guess it can't do that...anyhow, as i said before, i'm not sold on it just yet... I predict once the public curiosity dies down that sales numbers along with the price will drop... Sort of the way the 3ds did.

@optimus, if you listened, he mentioned that it's on, and he just turned off the display since he was only testing the distance. you will act'ly know if the distance is still okay since it has some sort of indication.

as for playing on the tablet with the console turned off, of course it won't happen, otherwise you're better off with a handheld device. if you read through iwata asks regarding the gamepad, they clarified that the game is not stored on the gamepad itself, but rather streamed through it from the console. but i do know, you can use the gamepad even if the console is off for some functions, like controlling the tv or something.

and i believe they also discussed how far you can go from the console itself. approx. 28 feet depending on the walls of your house. so if your toilet is near where the console is, and walls are regular standard thickness, it should work.

you call us idiots when we want to enjoy gaming your name has troll in it so who's the idiot now, besides I'm a multiplatform player who's had every console since the NES including less known ones like the SNK NEO GEO AND NEO GEO POCKET and I see a lot of potential in the Wii u, I like fun games and zombiu looks it plus its reinvented the survival horror genre which died last gen.even my favourite survival horror silent hill has lost its edge, we need scary games or else it isn't horror.